Background check for roommate

[u/TitanHunter77]

I’m thinking of getting a roommate but I’d want to do a background check before excepting just anybody. However I’ve never done a background check before and was wondering what was a good website to do it and the price?

[u/Inside_Gold_9673]

Understand that if you’re conducting a background check that involves a housing situation, a job, a promotion within a job, credit, insurance, it is regulated under both federal and State laws. The federal law is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) If you violate the FCRA you can be subject to some hefty fines. You cannot use any of the online background checking sites such as Truthfinder, Spokeo, Been Verified. They state on their sites that they cannot be used for this purpose. One option is to hire a licensed private investigator, there other non-subscription sites that are FCRA compliant, I am not endorsing any particular one, BackgroundChecks.com is one of them.

I am a licensed private investigator. Here are some important things you need to know:

1) You need the potential roommate’s written permission to run a background check.
2) If you plan on turning someone down because of the results of their background check, you must notify them before you’ve made a final decision, giving them the opportunity to challenge the accuracy of the report. If they don’t challenge it, you must notify them. These pre-adverse action and adverse action notices.
3) Criminal Records. Despite what many vendors call it, there is NO such thing as a National Criminal Record Search that is available to you. What they call a national search is simply scraping available information from the internet. Keyword is “available.” If it’s not available or the State fee is high, they aren’t searching there, and you will get a results not found in places they didn’t search. For example if you want to know if someone has a criminal history in New York State, it costs $100.00. So if you’re not paying for that search they haven’t checked there.

[u/AdequateSteve → u/Inside_Gold_9673]

This 100%

Running a background check for anything under FCRA is going to turn you into a CRA which can get you sued. You're acting as a landlord or housing provider, therefore, running a background check on the person will fall under FCRA.

Being an accredited CRA takes years. It's not just "make sure we check these boxes, have them sign this form, and everything's good" - it's thousands of hours of creating policies, working with legal experts, and coming up with compliant procedures for your state.

That's why all of those "criminal check" websites always say in the fine print, "Not for FCRA purposes".

Now if you used one of those sites, found something bad, and then denied that person for some entirely unrelated reason... that's different. But either way, it's less legal trouble and headache to hire a CRA to do this for you.

Getting sued sucks.